In February 2006, FSIS announced several changes to the Agency's Salmonella Verification Testing Program. Future testing will incorporate sampling of turkey carcasses and increase testing frequency in establishments with process-control problems.

As the proportion of samples from establishments with control problems increases, the percentage of Salmonella-positive samples could increase, especially in the immediate future. Changing the verification program will prevent valid comparisons of testing results over time (e.g., quarter-to-quarter or year-to-year trends). However, results of upcoming nationwide baseline studies can be used to provide valid estimates of the prevalence of certain pathogens of public health concern and permit comparisons to be made over time. A 12-month Young Chicken (Broiler) Baseline Study is scheduled to begin shortly, and additional baseline studies are under development.

In addition to specifying these new testing strategies, the notice also announced that quarterly results from the Salmonella Verification Testing Program would be posted. This quarterly report provides preliminary data for the first three months of 2006, January - March. The sampling of turkey carcasses was initiated in June 2006. Thus, the initial data for turkey carcasses will begin appearing in the second quarterly report. Annual reports containing final data will continue to be available on the FSIS Web site.

The data for the first quarter of 2006 are presented in two formats. First, Table 1shows the summary of all first quarter "A" samples in the same format used in the annual reports. The second format showing the results is a graph for each product(PDF Only) showing the number of samples and the percentage of positive samples by quarter for the last five quarters. This will be a moving window so that future quarterly reports will always show the five most recent quarters. The agency included graphs for all products, recognizing that the number of samples can be very small, or even zero, for some products in a specific quarter.

Note: Quarterly updates of Salmonella serotype information will be provided in a separate report.